The New Hope Corporation Limited (ASX: NHC) share price was on a continuous glide to nudge back past its 52-week highs in yesterday's session.
Underpinning the share price appreciation has been the price of coal, itself surging 149% over the past 12 months to date.
More upside to come for New Hope?
With investors still rallying the New Hope share price to new heights, it's no wonder to see analyst reiterating their buy calls on the stock.
Analysts at Macquarie have done just that, raising their price target on the bank by around 20%, now valuing the coal player at $6 per share.
In fact, all of the analysts covering New Hope have it rated as a buy right now, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.
For the Australian investment bank Macquarie, it has updated its modelling as the price of coal continues to surge to new heights.
This is set to help New Hope stretch earnings higher in the coming 12 months, a feature that the broker says could carry through to the share price.
Helping fuel the case on a forward looking basis is recent language used by Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese, in stating Australia will be a key international player on the energy market circuit.
Add in the geopolitical conflict in Europe, which has seen energy commodities rally to new heights in 2022, then the pricing environment looks healthy for both coal and the New Hope share price.
In particular, Germany's attempt to restart various mothballed coal plants is an indication that production is set to increase there.
And with Europe heading into winter, this is also a factor for consideration.
"[P]rices remain close to historically high levels as power crises across the world led economies to increase dependency on coal," Trading Economics said.
"The [international energy agency] IEA sees coal consumption in Europe rising by 7% in 2022 on top of last year's 14% surge, with the continent now turning to seaborne coal from South Africa, Indonesia, and Australia as it halts imports from Russia." it added.
With that, the stage is set for coal to keep surging to new heights should these particular trends continue. As to saying how high it will go, or if the rally will sustain, there's no real saying at this point.
Meanwhile, the New Hope share price is up more than 176% over the past 12 months.
